The Nightingale’s Prayer: One of the Best Egyptian Films Ever Made
The Nightingale’s Prayer – or Do’aa el Karawan – is an icon of Egyptian Cinema’s Golden age. Mayra Nassef writes about its strong female characters and its pioneering feminist themes that address gender inequality and cultures of shame.
Daftar Digest
We select the best from the Arab world each month, and put it in your inbox.
Curated Recommendations
Every time a guest joins us on one of our podcast series, they leave us with breadcrumbs to further explore some of the topics that they covered in the episode. Browse through some of the best recommendations for films, books, and music from the Arab world.
Staff Pick: Podcast Episode
Sonja Mejcher-Atassi
We did a deep dive into this episode of our This Is Not a Watermelon podcast with the author of "An Impossible Friendship: Group Portrait, Jerusalem Before and After 1948," professor Sonja Mejcher-Atassi.
Tsawwar
Tsawwar is a visual series enclosed monthly in our Daftar Digest and explores the stories behind a photograph taken in the region or by an Arab photographer.
The Orontes River: On Water Imageries and Local Knowledge
The Orontes stands out as the sole perennial river in Western Asia, meandering northward from Lebanon through Syria before merging its waters into the Mediterranean Sea. This geographical feature – having long held profound historical significance as a boundary marker since antiquity – has witnessed a series of shifts, embracing and bidding farewell to various attributes that have sculpted its being over time.
Beit Hammad: The History of a Family Home in Nablus
Mohammed Hammad writes about his family home in Nablus — Beit Hammad — sharing its history and its present.
What Exactly Are Bahrain's Dilmun Burial Mounds?
A cultural and archaeological history of Bahrain’s Dilmun Burial Mounds written by Zeina Alkhaja former archives assistant at the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities who now works at the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage. Image via Dilmun Mounds UNESCO nomination text
Tsawwar... Dina Al-Makhrami
Our new series, Tsawwar, explores places, people and moments in time through the eyes of photographers and their photos. This week’s features a photo and blurb by Dina Al-Makhrami.
QUARTERTONES MIXAPE“I want to represent some of the music of today that will be the past archive of tomorrow." DJ, producer and composer Jihed Khmiri (aka Pan-J) compiled an all-Tunisian mixtape for us this month.
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